Detective Michael Foder, 41, leaves Brooklyn Federal Court after being arraigned on two counts of perjury and one count of obstructing an official proceeding. Brooklyn, New York, Monday, February 26, 2018. (Jesse Ward for New York Daily News)

A former NYPD detective who carried out unofficial photo lineups on WhatsApp then falsified paperwork to make it look like he did them by the book has been sentenced to three months in prison.

Michael Foder, 42, pleaded guilty last year to perjury for lying under oath about the means by which he identified perpetrators in a federal carjacking case. He was assigned to the 70th Precinct in Flatbush from Oct. 2015 to Dec. 2016.

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Nine members of Foder’s family were in the Brooklyn courtroom for his sentencing on Monday, tearfully comforting one another during the proceedings.

U.S. District Judge Pamela K. Chen initially sentenced the Staten Island man to four months in prison, but changed it to three at the last minute. Prosecutors had recommended 15 to 20 months in prison. Foder has 60 days to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons.

“Once you start down this road it becomes a pile of lies,” she told Foder. “This reflects some stunning lack of conscientiousness.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathan Reilly said prosecutors became aware that Foder lied under oath after discovering discrepancies in photo array identifications of suspects in a livery cab carjacking case.

Reilly said that in more than one instance, Foder asked the carjacking victim to identify suspects through photos sent via WhatsApp, then backdated photo array lineups conducted more than a month later to the date he sent the messages.

“He’d been a law enforcement officer for 12 years,” Reilly said. “You don’t forge documents. You come to court, you tell the truth. There’s not anything about that that requires a great deal of training.”

Foder’s defense attorney, James A. Moschella, downplayed his client’s actions as mistakes made by a rookie detective “in way over his head,” and party blamed his superiors for “far too little guidance.”

Moschella said Foder would never frame someone he believed to be innocent. “He does have a good heart,” he said, “and this was not a mistake of the heart — it was a mistake of the head.”

“I cut corners and I was lazy. I took the easy way out, and look where it got me,” he said. “Lastly, I want to apologize to the NYPD and to my coworkers. I am truly sorry for my actions, and I am sorry for all the pain and embarrassment I have caused you.

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“To my brother: I am sorry that I have embarrassed you. You have always been my hero, and I’m sorry I’ve let you down,” Foder said.

In sentencing Foder, Judge Chen said he may have acted out of a “misguided belief he was doing the right thing,” but his actions were ill-advised.

“Furthermore, the defendant was no rookie,” she said. “There is no tolerance in the police department, nor should there be, for falsification of any kind.”